CAREFUL I AM APPROACHING MY SOAP BOX
As a health care professional smoking is a topic very near to me and my practice. Every day I treat smokers who have had heart attacks, cancer, COPD, and strokes directly related to smoking.
If you smoke, please consider quitting. You will never do a more healthy thing for you or your family.
It is very sad to see the destruction of families caused by smoking like I see every day.
Some random smoking facts:
Cigarettes contain more than 4000 chemical compounds and at least 400 toxic substances.
Research has shown that smoking reduces life expectancy by seven to eight years.
The number of people under the age of 70 who die from smoking-related diseases exceeds the total figure for deaths caused by breast cancer, AIDS, traffic accidents and drug addiction.
Children who grow up in a home where one or both of their parents smoke have twice the risk of getting asthma and asthmatic bronchitis. They also have a higher risk of developing allergies.
Infants under two years old are more prone to severe respiratory infections and cot death.
Ninety percent of lung cancer cases are due to smoking.
If no-one smoked, lung cancer would be a rare diagnosis - only 0.5 per cent of people who've never touched a cigarette develop lung cancer.